Good thing that the television version, titled Day Of The Animals here, is included, right? Wrong! The TV version was matted from 2.351. to a 4x3 pan and scan presentation. What has Media Blasters done in their infinite wisdom? In order to make this version of the film anamorphic they've further matted that 4x3 pan and scan presentation to 1.78.1 by slapping black bars on the top and the bottom so that you are literally missing roughly half the picture at any given time. This is made doubly frustrating by the fact that aspect ratio issues aside, the quality of the print used for this second transfer is far superior to the one used for the theatrical version even if it is still far from perfect. Let it stand, for the record that the video quality on this release, quite frankly, sucks and it's pretty insulting that the title has been handled as shoddily as it has in this department on this release. It should also be mentioned that there isn't any noticeable difference between the two versions in terms of content aside from the fact that the TV version does contain the missing dialogue that the theatrical version drops out and the title change.

Both versions also show compression artifacts (probably due to having both versions on a single sided disc) and neither one is properly flagged for progressive scan playback which means that you'll notice those nasty saw tooth artifacts if your gear is setup to take advantage of that feature.

Sound: The English language Dolby Digital Mono soundtracks on both versions of the movie fare better than the video presentations at least. While there's some mild hiss and a few instances of slightly muffled dialogue at least you can understand the performers and the levels are well balanced. An alternate Spanish language dub track is also included but there are no subtitles or closed captioning options here. While the audio quality won't make your short list of demo discs any time soon, it is at least serviceable enough.

Extras: The television version, Day Of The Animals contains an audio commentary with stars Jon Ceder and Lynda Day George who for reasons that remain a mystery are joined by Scott Spiegel of The Evil Dead fame. Maybe he just happened to be in the area during the recording of the commentary, maybe he really likes the movie and wanted to participate, who knows, but he didn't have anything to do with the making of the movie so his presence here, while not harmful in the least, is odd. That being said, Ceder and George have fun reminiscing about the movie and explaining their parts and what was required of them during the shoot. They discuss working with the late Girdler and they cover the location shooting as well. Of course, they also spend a fair bit of time talking about their fine furry co-stars and how a few scenes where they interact with them were shot. It's a decent track with a good sense of humor to it and which contains some good information and interesting stories as well.

Something Was Out There: Day Of The Animals Thirty Years Later is a retrospective featurette in which actors John Ceder and Paul Mantee are joined by Susan Backlinie who worked on the film not only as an actress in a small role (she played Mandy) but also as an animal handler on the set of the production. The interviews are fun, as they cover the location shooting and working with the animals in a bit more detail than the commentary did thanks to Backlinie's participation here, and it's fun to hear Mantee and Backlinie discuss their working relationship with Girdler as well. This featurette runs exactly twenty one minutes and thirty seconds in length.

Rounding out the extra features are a trailer for the feature and a decent sized still gallery or promotional materials for the film.

Final Thoughts: It's a real shame that the video is as completely botched as it is, as otherwise this would be a fine release of a really fun guilty pleasure. As it stands, the video is so bad that Day Of The Animals is barely worth a rental, even if the movie itself is a kick.